To Recover a Queen
by Somariel
Summary: Catra, Entrapta, and Hordak think they've figured out a way to get Queen Angella back. It's time to see if they're right. Set post Season 4.


Adora hadn't expected to spent her morning tracking down Catra, Entrapta, and Hordak, but when Glimmer had asked her find out why the three of them had been plotting together for the last few weeks, she couldn't say no.

It was closing in on noon when she finally found them in an out-of-the-way room on the first floor of the castle. There were large sheets of paper filled with diagrams and equations tacked up all over the walls and more were spread on the floor and the room's sole table. Entrapta and Hordak were bent over one of the sheets on the table, Hordak with his back to the door, and Catra was leaning against the nearest wall.

"Hi, guys," Adora said as she entered the room.

"Oh, hi, Adora," Entrapta said, looking up from the table.

Hordak turned at Entrapta's greeting and blinked slowly on seeing Adora, while Catra straightened up and came over to join the other two.

"Do you need something?" Entrapta asked. "Because we're kind of in the middle of something here."

"Yeah," Adora said, "I do. Glimmer asked me to find out why the three of you have been spending so much time together for the last few weeks. Apparently, it's making some people nervous."

Hordak and Catra both froze at her words before exchanging a long look, but Entrapta just smiled gleefully. "Oh, that's easy," she said. "We're trying to figure out if it's possible to get Queen Angella back."

Hordak and Catra both facepalmed at Entrapta's explanation and then Hordak spoke up. "We… had not wanted to tell anyone until we had a definitive answer one way or another, in order to avoid giving false hope."

"Okay, that makes sense," Adora said. "I'll figure out something to tell Glimmer that won't reveal exactly what you're doing. I just have one question, though. Please don't take offense, but, why is Catra involved?"

Catra sighed heavily. "I should have known you'd ask that," she said. "It was my idea. Plus, I seem to have retained some useful stuff from when I pulled myself out of that rift during the portal fiasco."

:-:-:-:-:

Three months later, as they were getting ready for bed, Catra said to Adora, "We need you to come to Hordak's former sanctum with us tomorrow. Bring your runestone."

Adora stopped in the middle of changing into her pajamas. "What, why? Who's 'we'?"

"Me, Entrapta and Hordak. This is for our retrieval project. Entrapta and Hordak think we need to get readings from the place where the portal was opened before we can make a final determination on whether or not it's possible."

"But why do I need to bring my runestone?" Adora asked.

"They think that since the sword was part of creating the portal the first time, the runestone is going to be needed for the new one," Catra replied. "That's part of the readings we're going to take tomorrow."

"Okay. I'll come."

So the next morning, after informing Glimmer of the expedition, Adora joined the other three in a skiff, along with a bunch of equipment. "Has anyone told Scorpia that we're coming?" she asked.

"I did, yesterday," Catra said. "She said she'd assign someone to help with the equipment."

"Oh yeah, that would be helpful," Entrapta said. "I mean, Hordak and I got it out here and into the skiff ourselves, but it took a few trips."

"Adora, do you have the runestone?" Catra asked.

"Right here," Adora said, pulling the necklace she'd had created for it out from under her jacket.

"Then let's go," Catra said, activating the skiff.

The ride to the former Fright Zone passed quickly and when they arrived, Scorpia was waiting for them with a trolley cart.

"Hi, everyone," she cried cheerfully, waving a pincer as the skiff came to a stop. "It's so good to see you all."

"Hi, Scorpia," Entrapta replied, jumping down from the skiff. "Are you here to help with the equipment?'

"Yeah," Scorpia said.

"You didn't have to do it yourself," Adora said as Scorpia started lifting the equipment from the skiff onto the cart.

"Oh, I know that," Scorpia said, "but I wanted to. It's been a while since I last saw Catra and Entrapta and this is as good an opportunity as any. Besides, I was sort of hoping to find out exactly what this project is about. Catra wasn't very informative when she called yesterday."

"If they get the results they're hoping for, they're going to have to tell everyone," Adora said.

"And if they don't?" Scorpia asked.

"Then they aren't going to tell anyone."

"But you seem to know what they're doing," Scorpia said.

"They only brought me into the loop so I could reassure the people who were getting nervous over the three of them working together on something secret," Adora said. "Although if that hadn't been necessary, they would have had to do it for this expedition, since they need to get comparative readings on my runestone."

"Now I'm really curious," Scorpia said. "But if they're not telling anyone yet, then I can wait." Turning to the other three, she said, "Okay, that's the last of the equipment."

"Thanks, Scorpia," Catra said. "Lead the way."

The trek to Hordak's former sanctum was filled with chatter and exchanges of news between Catra, Entrapta, and Scorpia, and all too soon, they were setting up the equipment according to Entrapta and Hordak's directions.

Once everything had been placed to their satisfaction, Scorpia hugged both Catra and Entrapta, told them to let her know when they were ready to leave, and left the room. After closing the door behind Scorpia, Entrapta looked around with a grin on her face, pulled out her recorder, and said, "Well, time to get started."

The hours passed slowly for Adora, given that she had nothing to do but watch and Entrapta's techno-babble passed right over her head, although Catra seemed to understand it well enough to follow along. She handed over her runestone when they asked and accepted it back when they were done with it. Finally, they declared themselves done.

"Well," Adora asked, "what's the verdict?"

"It should be possible," Entrapta said gleefully. "Oh, this going to be so exciting."

"So when should I schedule the Council meeting for?" Adora asked.

"The day after tomorrow," Catra said. "That gives us time to put together a presentation."

"Okay," said Adora. "The day after tomorrow it is."

:-:-:-:-:

Two days later, the Council convened in Bright Moon's council chamber.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Adora stood up. "Thank you all for coming today," she said. "I called this meeting so Catra, Entrapta, and Hordak can explain the project they've been working on for the last four months."

With that, she sat down and Catra stood up. "We've been keeping quiet about this because we didn't want to give false hope, but the project has reached a point where we need to involve other people. There is, not a guarantee, but a strong possibility, that we can get Queen Angella back."

At that point, Catra paused to let the clamor that had arisen at her last words quiet down. Adora looked around the table and saw that Glimmer and Micah both had tears rolling down their cheeks.

As the room quieted again, Glimmer spoke up. "You're serious? We could-" She paused, swallowed a sob, and tried again. "We could get- get Mom back?"

"It's not a guarantee, but yes," Catra said.

"I- I know. But still, a- a chance! Thank you!"

"One key thing we need to do is to consult with the sorcerers of Mystacor," Catra said.

"What for?" Micah asked.

"The best chance of success will come from a targeted portal, which means figuring out how to use magic to let you and Glimmer, as the ones with the strongest connection to Angella, direct the portal."

:-:-:-:-:

It had been six months since the momentous council meeting where the possibility of get Angella back was announced, but they were finally ready to do it. The portal machinery had been rebuilt and was in place, Glimmer and Micah had taken their place in the diagram surrounding the power pole, Adora was standing slightly to the left of the portal frame, loosely holding her runestone, and Bow was standing to the right of the frame. Castaspella and the other princesses were standing off to one side of Hordak's former sanctum with Entrapta and Hordak and Catra was standing by the power switch.

"Is everyone ready?" Catra asked.

Glimmer, Micah, Adora, and Bow all gave affirmative answers.

"Then let's do this," Catra said. With that, she pulled the lever to turn on the portal machine.

:-:-:-:-:

Angella drifted. She had no idea how long she had spent in this dimension, where she needed neither food nor sleep. There had been some sort of disturbance some time ago, but that was the most exciting thing to happen since she had been trapped here.

She was used to hearing the voices of those she missed, so when she heard Bow's voice again, she ignored it until she saw a figure coming towards her. Moving towards the figure, she called, "Bow, is that really you?"

"Queen Angella," Bow cried. "I'm glad I found you."

"Bow, what are you doing here?" Angella asked.

"I'm here to bring you home," Bow said.

"Bring me… home?" Angella repeated.

"Yes," Bow said. "See, the portal is waiting over there." He turned and pointed, and sure enough, off in the distance, Angella saw a swirling spot of color that was different from the unrelenting monotone of this dimension.

"But… how?" Angella asked. "Isn't it too dangerous to open a portal?"

"It's… been a few years," Bow said. "A lot of things have changed. Now come on, Glimmer and the others are eager to see you again."

"Very well," Angella said, taking Bow's hand. "Lead the way."

As they walked toward the portal side-by-side, Bow spoke again. "Just so you know, one of the things that's changed is that we've made peace with the Horde."

Angella felt stunned. "How did that happen?" she asked.

"It's a long story," Bow said, "but it's largely due to ending up with a common enemy. Anyway, I mentioned it because we had to open the new portal in the same place the old one was opened, which is Hordak's former sanctum. So don't worry about that."

"Very well," Angella said, "I will not."

Very soon, they reached the portal. "Do you want to go first?" Bow asked.

"We'll go through together," Angella said.

"Okay," Bow said. "On three. One. Two. Three."

Angella stepped into the portal side-by-side with Bow. There was a moment of disorientation and then she was through. The first thing she saw, standing a few feet in front of her, was Glimmer and… "Micah?"

"Angie," the impossible (beloved, so dearly beloved) figure said.

Angella's vision became blurry as the world spun around her and then everything went black.

:-:-:-:-:

When Angella opened her eyes again, she was in a dimly-lit room that was recognizable as one of the rooms in the Bright Moon castle's infirmary. Asleep in a chair by the side of her bed was Glimmer.

"Glimmer?" she said, shifting to sit up.

Glimmer jerked upright and a smile lit up her face. "Mom," she cried, "you're awake!" Then she threw her arms around Angella in a fierce hug.

Feeling awkward, Angella raised her arms and returned the hug.

Eventually, Glimmer let the hug go and pulled back. "I missed you so much, Mom," she said.

"I missed you too, Glimmer," Angella said. "I missed you, too." Looking around the room, she asked, "But when did we get back to Bright Moon? The last thing I remember is stepping out of the portal in what Bow said was Hordak's former sanctum."

"You fainted, Mom," Glimmer said. "It's been most of a day since you and Bow came back out of the portal."

"I what?" Angella asked. She couldn't possibly have heard that right.

"You fainted," Glimmer repeated.

"But…" Slowly, Angella started to remember what she had _seen_ on stepping out of the portal. "I… I thought… I thought I saw… your father."

"You did," Glimmer said. "He's alive."

_Oh,_ Angella thought, _maybe I did faint._ She was certainly _feeling_ faint right now. "But…"

"Hordak had him sent to Beast Island," Glimmer said. "It's a long story, but Adora, Bow, and Swift Wind found him when they went there to rescue Entrapta."

"Oh." It was all Angella could say.

"Do you want to see him?" Glimmer asked.

"Of course I do."

"Okay," Glimmer said. Turning towards the door, she called, "Dad, you can come in now."

The door opened and there he was. Her dearly beloved husband. There was grey in his hair and beard now, but it was still him. "Micah," she said, her voice wavering.

"Angie," he said, crossing the room to take the seat Glimmer had just vacated. "Oh, how I missed you." He held out his arms and Angella wrapped hers around him in a hug just as fierce as the one that Glimmer had given her, which Micah reciprocated. As they held each other, Angella felt tears start to roll down her cheeks.

Eventually, tears still falling, Angella released the hug and pulled back. "I was so sure you were dead," she said quietly. "I was certain that if you had been taken alive, the Horde would have used you as a hostage. They were certainly quite willing to do that when they kidnapped Glimmer."

"That may have been their intention," Micah said, "but when Hordak tried to interrogate me, I was able to turn the tables and use a truth spell to make him tell me how to non-lethally defeat him." He winced before continuing. "Given his prior conditioning, he drastically misinterpreted how I intended to use that information and had me sent to Beast Island for his own protection."

"His prior conditioning?" Angella echoed.

"Horde Prime instilled a lot of propaganda into his clones about how horrible and awful people who rebel against the Horde are. Hordak thought the information I obtained would be used to torture him to death."

"We never would have done that," Angella said hotly.

"I know that and you know that," Micah said, "but Hordak didn't. We _still_ occasionally run into issues where Adora has to translate, as she once put it, 'from Horde into Princess' and it's been nearly two years since Horde Prime was defeated."

"I take it that Horde Prime was the common enemy Bow mentioned as being part of making peace with the Horde," Angella said.

"Yes," Micah said. "Once Hordak had proof that Horde Prime would never give him the respect he sought, it was fairly easy to convince him to make common cause with the Rebellion. But enough about what's happened, there are still other people waiting to see you again. Are your ready to go out and greet them?"

"I think I am," Angella said, getting out of the bed. She was ready to face the future she had not thought she would get.

* * *

The stuff about what happened between Micah and Hordak before Micah was sent to Beast Island and what Hordak assumed about that is adopted from sympathy_for_hordak's fic _up to the platform of surrender_ on AO3.


End file.
